KUCHING: The Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) has appealed to the state government to include micro enterprises for the special one-time financial assistance of RM10,000.
SUPP secretary-general Datuk Sebastian Ting Chiew Yew said that this group (micro enterprises) has been greatly impacted by the pandemic, which has resulted in a huge drop in revenues and substantial losses.
“We firmly believe that everyone needs to support micro enterprises as they also play a critical and important role in our state’s economy,” he said in a statement on Thursday (Oct 7).
From ground feedback, he said, there is much confusion among the business communities that the special one-off financial assistance is only for the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
“However, it appears from the state government’s announcement that the special one-off financial assistance should not only be exclusively for the SMEs.
“We believe our the government’s intention is essentially to help active businesses in Sarawak and that should then include the micro enterprises as well,” he added.
According to SME Corporation Malaysia, micro enterprises are those companies with sales turnover of less than RM 300,000 per year or less than five full-time employees.
Following that, the Piasau assemblyman expressed his hope that the government will favourably consider including micro enterprises in the RM10,000 special one-off financial assistance.
On Aug 24, the government had made an announcement of a special one-off financial assistance of RM10,000 to be given under the Bantuan Khas Sarawakku Sayang (BKSS) 7.0 to active businesses in Sarawak registered with Socso as of Dec 31, 2020.
The special one-off financial assistance is to help active businesses to cover their operational costs, including rental and wages of their employees, especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
